EWN: An exceptional news site experience

Eyewitness News (EWN) has a new-look website. The news component of Primedia’s four radio stations has refreshed its look, added more interactive features as well as editorial offerings such as opinions and columns.

“The website has a new, fresh feel that makes it easy to navigate and exciting to be on. It offers our users many layers with more depth on every story,” says EWN editor in chief, Katy Katopodis.

Katopodis says while EWN has always prided itself on broadcasting breaking news from home and abroad, sport and traffic reports, it now has a “compelling and improved multimedia section”.

EWN, which airs on Talk Radio 702, 567 CapeTalk, 94.7 Highveld Stereo and 94.5 Kfm, did a soft launch of its website a few weeks ago in order to monitor stability and user response. The site, using state of the art technology, has already seen considerable growth in traffic and positive comments.

EWN undertook extensive research to find out more about what on-line users wanted. Based on this feedback, “we have designed an exceptional news website experience,” added Katopodis.

The new-look website incorporates an impressive array of software including Sitecore, one of Gartner’s leading quadrant recommended Web Content Management systems, which is capable of discerning user patterns and adapting news content according to the viewer’s preferences. This ensures a more refined news experience, subtly tailored to meet the needs of users.

“We know that not all news is the news you’re interested in. With a learning system powering the new site – the more you use it, the more we’ll start to deliver you the content you’re most interested in. So, for example, if you view more political stories than sports stories, that’s exactly what you’ll see first when you visit the site. The idea is to make it simple for the user to get the news that is relevant to them, whenever they want it, “ Katopodis says.

The new website is totally interactive, integrating about 100 social media applications, making it easy for users to share stories with their digital community on anything from blogs to Facebook, to LinkedIn and Delicious.

“One of the key differences our users will be exposed to, is how they experience stories which have been developing over several months or even years,” says EWN’s online editor, Sheldon Morais.

“We’ve strengthened the thread between articles on the same issue by introducing timelines and dedicated topic pages which will not only give you the latest news but also video reports, audio interviews, pictures and historical information,” says Morais.

Users “on-the-go” will also be able to get news wherever they are on their mobiles in a “snack news” format. The new ewn.mobi embraces Handset Detection Application (HDA) technology which displays news content in a format best suited for a particular handset.

“Whether you have a smartphone or a feature phone, you will be able to access the EWN mobi news service,” said Primedia Broadcasting’s chief operating officer, (COO), Ryan Till. “Using the latest technology, we will get the news to you within seconds at the press of a few buttons.”